THE Government came under mounting pressure to introduce laws to combat electoral fraud yesterday as Tony Blair braced his party for heavy losses in the local, European and London elections.

Both the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Reform Society demanded immediate steps after a Times investigation uncovered widespread allegations of fraud, vote-stealing and intimidation.

But as the polls closed last night, the Government was still trying to defend the system with turnout figures which showed significant increases on the last European election in 1999 and on last year's council polls.

In all four all-postal ballot regions the North West, the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and the East Midlands turnout was 35-37 per cent, compared with 19-22 per cent in 1999. The figures for council elections were up by 10-15 per cent.

However senior Labour figures were talking down the prospect that a higher turnout would benefit the party amid signs of a protest vote against Tony Blair's leadership.

Breaking with his usual policy of not commenting on domestic issues while abroad, Mr Blair used a press conference after the G8 summit to admit that the Iraq war had dogged Labour's elections campaign.

"Iraq and the worries over Iraq have been a shadow over our support, but in the end you have to take decisions that are right and you have to see them through," he said. In a swipe at the Conservative and Liberal Democrat campaigns, Mr Blair added: "Yes we have had criticisms of the Government but I don't think in the course of the campaign that either of the other parties have articulated anything in terms of policy or vision that gives me political concern."

Senior Conservative sources were confident that the underlying trend in the elections pointed to a Tory revival. They conceded that the shine has been taken off Michael Howard's first elections as leader by the UK Independence Party, but believe that many voters would come back to them in a general election.

The Liberal Democrats made the first gain of the night, winning the hung council of Pendle, Lancashire, and were expected to hold Liverpool with a greater number of seats. Postal votes dramatically increased the turnout in Burnley, where Labour was set to lose control and the British National Party lost a seat but won another. The Tories gained Trafford, a hung council they had not run since 1995.

Hull gave the UK Independence Party its first local councillor in England and Wales but the defeated Independent was expected to mount a legal challenge on the ground of problems with the postal ballot.

John Prescott's £21million mass postal-ballot experiment was undermined by a fellow Labour MP, Gordon Prentice, who said that postal votes should be abandoned for the autumn referendums on regional assemblies if yesterday's elections were found to be "seriously contaminated".

The Conservatives called for compulsory postal ballots to be abandoned for the referendums. They also said that many candidates were likely to dismiss the results as invalid, because of postal delays and malpractice.

Liam Fox, the co-chairman of the Tories, said: "There must not be any more compulsory postal ballots. Voters deserve the right to vote in person."

The two electoral organisations called for individual registration in future elections so that signatures on ballot forms could be checked against signatures registered before the campaign. The Electoral Reform Society also recommended that it should be illegal for any party to handle blank ballot papers, a practice which The Times found commonplace in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber.

"We will be looking at electoral fraud as part of our evaluation of the pilots which starts next week," a spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission said. She said that the review would look at whether its code of practice had worked and if there was need for further laws. She emphasised that the commission would recommend individual registration rather than household registration to avert fraud.

A spokesman for the Electoral Reform Society supported the call for individual registration but said that steps should also be taken to ensure that the police took electoral fraud more seriously. He said that many people thought they could get away with fraud because the police often did not pursue investigations.

In the Commons, Oliver Heald, the Shadow Leader of the House, said that "fraud, intimidation and sheer incompetence" were marring the all-postal ballots. "We need an urgent statement setting out how the Government intends to address what is now being called the 'fistful of ballots' fiasco", he said.

Peter Hain, the Leader of the House, insisted that postal ballots were no more prone to fraud than traditional voting. But there were widespread reports of postal ballots having not arrived or been returned. In addition, tens of thousands of postal ballot papers were spoilt because witness signatures were not completed.

A MORI poll for ITV showed Ken Livingstone was set to be re-elected Mayor of London, with an 8 per cent lead over Steve Norris.

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